


Into The Labyrinth

by jillyfae



Category: Inception (2010), Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Gen, Shadow world reveal, Slice of Life, That's saying something, When your life is a dream thief, or a warlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25010536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: Ariadne is somehow not surprised to see Arthur and Eames show up on her doorstep at two in the morning.She should have been.Nothing else goes as she expected.
Relationships: Ariadne & Arthur & Eames (Inception), Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 53
Collections: SHBingo





	Into The Labyrinth

**Author's Note:**

> Shadowhunters Bingo Square: Crossover

Ariadne isn't sure why Eames and Arthur have shown up on her doorstep at two in the morning, but she can admit (to them if they bother to ask, not that she thinks that they will, that sort of performative concern would be terribly out of character) that it's somehow not surprising.

The possibility of it happening may, in fact, have influenced her decision to access the tiniest part of her cut from The Job to get her own place while she finished up her thesis. Plus, she was tired of living like a 20-something-year-old again. It hadn't been fun the _first_ time.

She waves them in, and is inordinately proud of herself that she remembers to start the coffee maker by hand rather than magicking it all together like she usually does. Potential dream heist complications were, as she'd already admitted to herself, (but not them, no, never them), not the only reason she'd wanted a place to herself, struggling grad-student appearances be damned.

She does surreptitiously combine two of her plates into one larger platter so she can get the mugs and spoons and milk from the fridge and a handful of her hoarded sugar packets over to the table in one trip though.

She turns back around, and almost drops the tray, saving it with a spark of distressingly bright purple magic.

Luckily they both have their eyes closed.

_Because Arthur has his head on Eames' shoulder, and Eames is leaning right back._

"What the fuck." She manages to keep her voice down, but not swearing is way the hells too much effort, even if she mostly kept up a sweet-young-thing persona when she was being _their_ Ariadne rather than her usual Ariadne.

Eames opens his eyes and offers her a smug grin, but it's a pale imitation of his usual one, and she feels a twinge of actual worry beneath her mostly pleased exasperation. "Did you never ask our darling Arthur his last name?"

_Our._

_Darling._

_Last name._

She blinks at him, and puts the tray on the table. "That seemed like a thing that wasn't done, in your circles, if it wasn't offered." 

Arthur snorts, and he waves a vaguely rude gesture at... well, presumably the whole damn world, though she assumes primarily at her and Eames, since they're here, but he doesn't bother to open his eyes. "Not like she asked you for your first name, either."

Eames nods gently, enough to make his point without dislodging Arthur's head. "You are the only one allowed to address me by my first name." 

The very edge of Arthur's mouth tilts into the tiniest smile she's ever seen, and it is quite unexpectedly adorable. 

Ariadne swallows the urge to actually say _awww_ out loud, and finally remembers to sit down. She takes her own mug, and slides the tray the two inches it takes to get to the other side of her tiny table, right by Eames' elbow, since he's still the only one with functionally open eyeballs. "How long have you been married then, Misters Eames?"

Arthur huffs out a breath, but the tiny smile doesn't waver, and Eames' grin eases into something that looks a trifle more honest than he usually allows. "Misters Eames, I like that."

She notices neither of them even bothers to deflect her question.

Eames makes a cup, adds sugar, no milk, and slides it over next to Arthur's hand before starting on his own... milk, no sugar. 

That's also oddly adorable, though she's not sure why. 

She takes a sip of her own coffee (milk and sugar both, because why not), and watches the way they seem to slowly relax.

Silently. 

"Well, if that's it for small-talk then," she puts her mug down with a slightly louder _tap_ against the table than she'd intended. "What brings you to my door in the middle of the night?"

Arthur allows a full-blown _frown_ to settle on his face, from forehead to eyebrows to mouth to jaw, and she feels another twinge of unease.

"Weird job went sideways," Eames says. 

Arthur suddenly sits up straight, eyes open and entirely focused, and he leans forward just a little, staring right at her.

She almost sparks purple again, and wonders why she thought going back to school again was a good idea. She's too old for all-nighters and midnight meetings.

Catarina will _die_ laughing if she ever hears Ariadne say that. She's not even a hundred. 

"Well, thanks for being terrifying at two in the morning, it really adds to the ambiance." Ariadne glares back at him. "Very helpful. Nice thing to do to the lady who answered the door when she didn't have to."

Eames coughs, very unconvincingly covering his laughter. 

Arthur is still frowning.

Ariadne rolls her eyes, and stands up. "Either tell me, or tell me it's none of my business, but glaring at me helps no one, and isn't nearly as scary as you think." She turns around to rinse her mug out. "You're welcome to the pull-out—"

"He reminded me of you." Arthur finally speaks up.

She turns around, leaning against the counter. "Who did?"

"Our mark."'

Fucking hells, it's like pulling teeth. "And how did the mark remind you of me, Mr. Arthur Eames?"

Eames shakes his head and leans back in his chair, far enough she's reasonably sure half the legs aren't touching the ground anymore. "Damn, I didn't know you could pull off the frosty condescension so well."

Ariadne shrugs. "I contain multitudes."

"I don't know!" Arthur ignores their by-play completely, his hands rising up in the air with exasperation. "There was something off about the whole job, someone else did the research, we were just helping out a friend of a friend." He pauses as if vaguely disappointed in himself that he'd taken a job without doing his due diligence.

She's a bit surprised, herself, but she supposes that everyone has an off day, now and then.

Even Arthur, somehow.

Even when he was on a job with Eames? She supposes he must have trusted that friend of a friend... 

Who let them down.

No wonder they're here, with the one person who has no connections to any of the people who might have just screwed them over. 

No wonder Arthur's so prickly, even as he's trying desperately to let his guard down.

Arthur sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose. "He moved through the dream like you did that first time, like he could see around all the corners even before he knew they were there, and he threw _lightning_ at us to kill us and shock us awake, but I would have sworn right up until the moment he did it that he didn't even know he was in a dream."

_Shit._

"Ariadne." Eames leans forward, his chair legs hitting the ground with a thump heavy enough she spares a thought to hope it doesn't wake up her downstairs neighbor. Not that it's her fault werewolves have super-sensitive hearing, especially at this time of the month. "What do you know."

She opens her mouth, and closes it again. "What's his name?"

"Anton Senka."

Ariadne closes her eyes, and feels her body sag. _Double shit._

"You know him," Eames sounds surprised, and possibly disappointed, and possibly five other emotions he's putting on just to confuse her. 

She realizes they're here on a hunch, Arthur's hunch, and Eames hadn't thought it'd play out, but he'd backed it anyways, because it was Arthur. 

_His_ Arthur. 

She's going to get in _so_ much trouble for this. "Was he already gone when you woke up, even though he'd been the one to kill you in the dream, even though he ought to have still been under because of the drugs?"

"Yes." Arthur leans forward, and he's all sharp edges again, chasing a lead, because he knows he's got her, got _it,_ whatever it is. "You had to talk to Yusuf about your dosage levels, didn't you."

 _Warlocks have to suppress their magic to stop it from metabolizing the drugs faster than Mundanes do,_ she thinks, but all she does is nod. Warlocks also aren't supposed to tell Mundanes about the Shadow World.

"Let me make a phone call."

Arthur frowns again, but Eames puts a hand on his arm, and Arthur sits back in his chair. 

Apparently she's still theirs too, for now, and Eames is making sure Arthur doesn't jump too soon.

Eames won't stop him forever though. 

Eames is perfectly capable of deciding to jump all on his own, if she takes too long.

This is bigger than just her, if the dreamers are starting to find the edges of the Shadow World. Bigger than Anton's High Warlock in Madrid, bigger than her own here in Paris. 

She calls Magnus. 

"Ariadne Sovanna, I know damn well you're in almost the same timezone as I am, if this is not an emergency I will hex you into the next century."

"Anton Senka was targeted by dream thieves and only got away because he threw lightning at them in the dream."

There's a deeply eloquent pause on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Ariadne says. 

She hears Magnus sigh. "Well at least it wasn't a Shadowhunter, think what they would have gone through if someone's subconscious threw Shax demons at them."

Ariadne can't stop the snort, but she also shudders a little. "Now I'm going to have nightmares about Shax, thanks."

 _Shacks?,_ she sees Eames mouth, and he and Arthur share a concerned look. 

"How much trouble will I get into if I explain things properly to my thieves?"

"None." Magnus answers promptly. "I'll tell Alec about it. _In the morning,_ he somehow miraculously slept through this phone call."

She hears a murmur of a man's voice in the background, and doesn't even try to hide her amusement. "Are you sure about that?"

"Shut up." She's not entirely sure if he means her or his husband, but decides not to push her luck.

"Mm-hmm," she agrees.

She can practically hear Magnus roll his eyes. "Give them the overview, please. Alec and I will need to talk to them tomorrow to see if we can track down who's mixing the Shadow World and the Mundane."

"Never a dull moment?"

"Some days I like to imagine a dull moment. Just one. Just to see what it might be like." Magnus sighs, loud and dramatic. "Think you could build me a dream like that?"

"It'll cost you, I've got a reputation now." 

Magnus laughs, bright and delighted. "I think I can afford you."

"I'll give you a good deal."

"No need for that, darling, I always pay people what they're worth. Good luck, I'll call you in a few hours, yes?"

"Thank you." Ariadne hangs up before he can deflect it like he usually does.

Arthur just looks at her, but Eames plasters on an innocently curious expression.

She waves her hand, and summons the whiskey from her cabinet to land on the table in a shower of purple sparks. 

They both jerk back, Eames hard enough he knocks over his chair and has to stumble his way to his feet. 

"So." She tilts her head, decides to just go for it. "Magic's real, and you tried to steal information from a warlock."

"Fuck?" Eames asks, which is pretty damn eloquent, considering.

Arthur reaches forward, one finger pushing on the bottle. He reaches in his pocket, and pulls out a red die, which he rolls between his fingers for one long moment, two, before he exhales, long and slow. 

"Is that for us?" he asks, poking the bottle again and lifting his eyebrows at her.

She grins. "Thought some Irish might help the rest of the story go down."

Eames grunts, and fixes his chair, and sits back down. He picks up the whiskey, and carefully adds a very heavy splash to his own coffee, and a slightly lighter one to Arthur's. "Is this a long story, then?"

"Oh, there are a _lot_ of stories." Ariadne sits back down. "Get comfortable."


End file.
